From: "Thomas Jeenicke" <Thomas_Jeenicke@public.uni-hamburg.de>
Subject: (urth) Re:The two Typhons
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 10:32:34 +0100

Nicholas Gevers wrote (message dated 14 Mar 2000 06:06:7):
>... How, then, could Typhon have mustered the technical and economic
>resources invested in the "Whorl", resources clearly infinitely beyond
those
>available to the Autarchs of one or two thousend years later? ...

I mostly agree with Your explanation, but like to add a thought: Typhon and
his followers are probably not Urth-natives but came from another planet in
the same system (Mars or Venus). While constructing the Whorl, Typhon might
very well still rule other worlds besides Urth and could have used their
resources, too.

Back to the message:
>... the Typhon Severian encounters in SWORD and in URTH is an abandoned
>version of the tyrant, left behind when Pas and his innumerable Cargo
departed
>Urth ... The experiment with two heads was never going to ensure
immortality,
>digitization made far better sense, and the bicephalic ogre of Mount Typhon
is
>a discarded prototype with a futile will of its own.

That ist possible, but it doesn't seem necessary or even likely to me. The
"ogre" obviously works quite well. Probably he was "turned down" only
because of the political situatuion, not because of (bio-)technical
problems. And if the new body should fail, Typhon could have his head
transplated onto another victim. Why should digitalization be better than
then this method? Maybe they are both equivalent tries to achieve
immortality.

One last thought: These are interesting questions, but maybe we should not
take them too serious. I don't know, but I doubt that Wolfe really wanted to
create a coherent super-series consisting of the New Sun and Long Sun/Short
Sun books and othér works (like Tolkien did with his MiddleEarth stories).
Has Wolfe ever said something about the connection between the two/three
series (perhaps in an interview)?

Thomas


*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/